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Isaac Meyer

This podcast, assembled by a former PhD student in History at the University of Washington, covers the entire span of Japanese history. Each week we'll tackle a new topic, ranging from prehistoric Japan to the modern day.

History of Japan

This week: Taiwan was the first overseas territory annexed by Japan with a large existing population. So how did the government's policies on religion--and especially Shinto--help shape the nature of Japanese colonial rule there? And how did those policies evolve as Taiwan's own place in the empire changed?
 
Show notes here.

Episode 557 - The Gods March Overseas, Part 3

This week, the story of an Edo period writer whose primary claim to fame was producing decent ripoffs of people far more famous and talented than him. What does a career like that tell us about the book market in premodern Japan--and more importantly about what we as people tend to look for in the things we read?
 
Show notes here.

Episode 558 - The Hack

Our last episode of 2024 is also the first episode in a series on one of Japan's most distinctive cultural phenomenons: otaku culture. This week: is the idea of being an "otaku" older than we think? 
 
Show notes here.

Episode 559 - The Otaku, Part 1

For our first episode of 2025: "otaku culture" as a phenomenon began to emerge, in part, as a reaction against the crass commercialism of postwar Japan. Yet now, it is entirely a part of the fabric of that commercialism. How did that happen? We'll explore it by looking at two fascinating phenomena: the dojin market known as Comiket and the transformation of Tokyo's neighborhood of Akihabara.
 
Show notes here.

Episode 560 - The Otaku, Part 2

In the final episode of this series: how did "otaku culture" spread overseas when it was so stigmatized at home, and what can all this tell us about Japan in the post-bubble era?
 
Show notes here.

Episode 561 - The Otaku, Part 3

This week: the first of three episodes on urban rioting in Tokugawa period Japan. This week, we're covering the first two urban riots in the history of the shogun's capital city. What drove the people of Edo to riot, and how did the shogunate respond to those challenges to its authority?
 
Show notes here.

Episode 562 - You Gotta Fight for Your Right to Party, Part 1

This week, we cover the second and third of Edo's three great riots in 1787 and 1866. How did samurai and commoners talk about these acts of mass violence? How was all this a manifestation of a sense of "street justice" among the masses? And what's with the handsome young guy everyone keeps swearing was secretly behind the whole thing?
 
Show notes here.

Episode 563 - You Gotta Fight for Your Right to Party, Part 2

This week: outside of big urban riots, how did violence figure into the daily life of the Edo period? To answer this question, we'll take a look at one particularly well-documented example: youth gangs in the area surrounding Sensoji in the shogun's capital of Edo.
 
Show notes here.

Episode 564 - You Gotta Fight for Your Right to Party, Part 3

This week: what do we know about women and the wrong end of the law during the Tokugawa Period? Given the male-dominated nature of the feudal social order and the historical written record, what can we figure out? And what are the limits of that knowledge?
 
Show notes here.

Episode 565 - Riot Girls

This week: the start of a multi-part "modernized biography" intended to help us explore postwar Japan through the lens of a single, fascinating life. This episode is mostly focused on introducing our subject--Miyazaki Manabu--and his unique and fascinating circumstances as the scion of a small yakuza family.
 
Show notes here.

Episode 566 - The Revolutionary, Part 1

This week we'll be tackling our first media review and discussing by far the most influential piece of historical fiction ever written about Japan: Shogun, by James Clavell.

Listen to the episode here, and be sure to give me feedback on this one so I can improve the style for future review episodes!

Episode 30 - A Review of Shogun

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